Tomorrow Daily: Tomorrow Daily 047: Dyson's new robot vacuum, a PlayStation classroom in South Korea, and more

Tomorrow Daily: Tomorrow Daily 047: Dyson's new robot vacuum, a PlayStation classroom in South Korea, and more

23:52 /
September 4, 2014

On today's show, a South Korean university offers students a game course with a crazy PlayStation-themed classroom, Dyson (finally) unveils its robo-vacuum, and small robots work together to 3D print structures.

On today's show, a South Korean university has a PlayStation class, complete with DualShock desks.
Dyson finally unveiled its ultimate robotic vacuum this week, but it's maybe not so ultimate after all.
And, tiny robots are 3D printing buildings.
Pretty exciting.
Mm-hm.
Tomorrow Daily.
Greetings, citizens of the internet.
Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best, the best tech talk show in the known universe.
I'm your host,
Absolutely.
Yeah it is!
I'm your host Ashley Esqueda, and joining me today, Tim Stevens.
Hi everybody!
Or as I like to call him, Ginger Beard the Wise, nicest guy in tech, trademark.
So I've been told.
So he has been told.
Mm-hm.
Man a, man about, editor at large.
What are, you have like a million titles.
Editor at large is a pretty good one.
Just because it's very vague and [INAUDIBLE]
I would say, literally at large because I, think the last time I heard from you you were in Budapest.
I was in Budapest not that long ago and I will soon be in Paris and.
Tokyo and, India after that
So much traveling.
and, yeah, I, I tower, try to get around.
But I gotta find the good stories and, bring them to all you wonderful people out there.
There are some, yeah, he did the Google X story.
That was really good.
Cool.
Yeah, I've continued to follow the Google Lunar XPRIZE which is, part of the reasons for all this travel.
A lot of good, cool stuff going out in the commercial space industry.
And those companies are all over the place so, I gotta go.
Do you think you could stuff me in your suitcase when you go to Tokyo?
We talk about Japan all the time on the show.
I don't know how many bags I'm allowed to pack actually.
I am sorry to say.
It's going to be a long trip.
You know I'd pay the extra weight fee there.
It would probably be about 20 bucks.
I am not, I am not under 50 pounds unfortunately.
Pretty bad.
But enough of that.
We gotta talk about some news.
Let's look at the headlines.
[MUSIC]
Alright, for our first story today is this [LAUGH] Playstation class, which is crazy.
This is actually, I am sorry if I butcher this, my South Korean viewers.
Sangmyung University In Seoul, South Korea.
I think you nailed it.
That's good.
I think, I think I did okay.
I feel okay about it.
Apparently the university teamed up with Sony to bring a Playstation themed classroom, but it's not a class about Playstation or just Sony, it's a class about games.
Right, and not game development, but just games.
Games.
Like, it's really, really weird this, this class actually starts tomorrow, September 5th, so congratulations to anybody enrolled in this class cuz it looks really fun.
Uh-huh.
And you can see these are, that is a dual-shock desk.
Desk.
Apparently it actually is.
Very short throw on those buttons though.
I don't think that would be very playable.
Yeah, it would be sort of weird to have to smash a bunch of buttons and stuff.
But not only is this being used as a classroom, of course, Sony wants people to come in and use it during their spare time and play Playstation 4 games.
I don't think they'll have a problem with that.
Filling up that classroom, I don't think so either.
But the lectures actually seem pretty interesting.
This class starts tomorrow, September 5th, it goes all the way through December.
But they're doing console history, artist lectures, they're gonna have game developments maybe come in, game development in engines, so they're gonna talk about different engines they use to develop games, social and mobile gaming, indie games, and they even have a day where they get to take a field trip to a games studio.
Pretty tough.
Probably, probably Sony.
Pretty tough, and it's a full three credit class, right?
Three credit class.
Full, full class.
Full credit.
Pretty great.
Mm-hmm
I mean I know we have game development courses
Mm-hmm
and curriculums here in the States but I have never seen a company take over an entire classroom.
And literally, I mean, it's plastered, it's like putting a wrap on your car, like, for a monster energy drink or something, that's nuts.
I think it's great though, because there are so many classes teaching film appreciation, and of course plenty of literature classes, and so, ultimately, I think we've reached the point where video games.
Deserve this kind of appreciation to study as well.
No, that's very true.
I think that, I think that's a really good point.
I agree.
I just think it would be so great.
What do you, what would you want to see?
I'd want to see some folks from bizarre creations there talking about how to make a fun racer.
You know they did.
I like that.
A metropolis street racer in Project Gotham, I think that'd be pretty great.
You know, you'd probably want Kazi, Kaz Yamaguchi from Polyphony Digital from, you know, I'm a big race.
Fans, so perhaps.
I couldn't tell.
I couldn't tell.
I'm a platformer fan, so we're two sides of the same coin.
I think there are so many great opportunities.
Man, so many different genres out there that are so interesting and have so much history and so much development behind them.
It sounds like an awesome course.
Yeah.
I kind of wish I were back in school.
Let's go to South Korea and find out.
We got 24 hours to get there.
We have 24 hours.
I think that's just enough for a plane flight.
We're only a half hour from L.A.
There's gotta be a straight flight from here to LAX.
I'm sure there is.
I'm sure.
Tim you gotta tell me about this Dyson vacuum.
Cuz I saw a little bit about it this morning but I haven't really.
Gotten into to it.
Yeah.
I saw a picture, and I have some questions.
So please.
And concerns.
So this is called the Dyson 360 Eye, which is a robovac.
I think, ultimately, we've been expecting Dyson to make a robovac of some sort, because the Roomba's been around forever, there are a lot of other products on the market 2 and in fact Dyson has been working on this for 16 years now and they are finally releasing it now.
Basically they said that the battery technology is finally good enough to make this thing feasible, because they want it to be way more powerful than any other vacuum on the market, the product example we have shown.
Really how powerful it is just yet.
So, so better battery tech.
So you're saying this is, this things gonna last cuz a Roomba lasts for hours.
So this is gonna last like all day?
Roomba's can last, you know, upwards of a 100 minutes or more.
And the Neato Robo Vacs can last about the same.
This guy, how about 20 minutes?
That is-
On a charge.
What?
20 minutes on a charge.
What?
Now it is a more powerful vacuum, that's an important clarification.
But it will only go 20 minutes.
On a charge.
So basically, the battery tech was not good enough for them to even make it at all, because it wouldn't run.
I'm just imagining this thing like shaking the floor, and it spins up, making the whole house vibrate because it's got so much power.
It's smoking and like, help!
.
But it can return back to its charging base when it runs out of power, so you know, it could do half the room, go recharge for a couple of hours.
Comes [CROSSTALK] where it left off or that kind of thing.
This looks really tall.
That's the other thing.
So, it's over eight inches tall.
That's way too tall.
Which makes it twice as tall as the [UNKNOWN] robo vacs and the Rumba's are only about three and a half inches tall so it's considerably taller.
Won't go under your couch, unless you have a really tall.
I don't know, how tall is your couch?
Am I.
It's definitely not over eight inches tall.
No, my-
That looks ridiculous!
I, who's gonna- well, okay, so, and I already know it's going to be really expensive because it's Dyson, and Dyson makes really expensive-
Yeah.
vacuums.
I left the best part for last.
So, it's going to be releasing next year,-
Okay.
In Japan first, you ready for this?
I'm ready.
Hit me with it.
Twelve-hundred and fifty dollars.
It's it's just.
No.
Like they're so much, no, like what
Right.
You can get a top shelf room of four, for $400.
Four hundred bucks.
You can also get one of the neato robovacs, which I think are pretty impressive.
So the neatos have a laser scanner bag, so they would leave their little charging pods, they'll go out in the middle of the room, they'll do a 360 spin of the room to scan your room in 3D.
Oh.
And they'll find the most efficient path.
And again, if they run out of charge, it will go back and recharge and continue onward.
That's pretty impressive.
Now the Dyson in theory should be able to do the same thing, but that's using a camera, a single camera, which means it's gonna have a hard time figuring out objects in 3D which makes me wonder
That's very odd.
just how effective it's gonna be in terms of mapping out the floor.
And because it's taller,.
That means it's also narrower than the others, which means it has to go back and forth more times, so it's gonna take even longer to complete.
To complete its cycle, which means it's gonna take three days for you to get your living room done &gt;.
Yeah, yeah.
if it's any, any larger than a broom closet.
I don't like that.
I dunno, I mean, we haven't see it running yet, they gave some very simple demos at [INAUDIBLE] when they launched.
It's got smartphone apps.
You can schedule, which is nice and it's got the camera so you can watch from the camera too, which will be fun for 2 minutes.
Yeah, I was going to say that's, I don't think anybody's going to be like, I'm going to check in.
I mean the top shelf neat-o [INAUDIBLE], which is my pick, is 600 bucks and that gives you like a full scheduling and like virtual walls and everything else.
You can get two of those suckers and if you have a 2, 4 you can be totally...
Covered.
That's, yeah, see, and for the price of one little canister.
That's just really weird.
okay, so I want to discuss this, these little 3D robots
Mm-hm.
before we go to break.
These are little building robots.
Now we talked about a 3D printed castle a while ago.
This engineer put up, he built his own 3D printer.
It printed sort of a concrete mixture that he came up with.
Now.
This is coming from the mini-builders project.
And, these are small robots that can actually take over from the previous robot and they each have their own little function.
Which is pretty cool.
So, what they're doing is, the very first robot is the Foundation Robot.
You can see here it says, Foundation Robot.
And the, the foundation robot will lay out the first 20 layers of a building's footprint, using a track.
So, see it's following its track here and it's printing out the first 20 layers of a structure.
Pretty cool.
And then, when that robot takes over or when that robot is done with its 20 layers, the grip robot takes over and this robot actually doesn't need a. Track.
It was four wheels on it.
See?
And you place it on the structure there, and it just uses the wheels as a guide to go around and it just keeps printing, over and over and over again.
As it goes around in a circle.
And it also has a heating element in it so it cures a little faster then it normally would.
And so it stays warm at night to.
Cause it can get pretty chilly on those building sites.
Out on those building, up high.
I mean, especially as you go up.
Elevation is going to get colder.
Cold, because then they're uncomfortable.
Well then they'd be sad.
I mean, and then you'd have to get them jacket, it just gets really expensive, I mean, and nobody wants to do that, and then the last thing is, it's a vacuum robot, not like the Dyson, a little different.
Probably more expensive though.
Probably a lot more expensive, but this one actually is placed on the side and you can see they have these sort of treads, and it's attached to the side of the building, and what it does is it.
Will support the walls that have already been built and it will add supporting materials in bisecting lines.
So you, you see all of the lines have been built horizontally.
This one adds lines going vertically to help strengthen the structure.
Make sure that it's not just gonna completely fall apart if, if it, you know, gets hit.
So interestingly enough these are not tiny but they're small compared to other, you know, 3D printing bots that are making structures of the size.
Right because.
Up to now the challenge has been if you wanted to print something big you needed a 3D printer that is even bigger or you need to build it in pieces and then somebody has to pick up the pieces and put it together.
Right, exactly.
So with this they're saying that it's pretty scalable, that you'd be able to have multiple robots in each different phase working on a building at the same time, with one large robot that would be actually feeding the material to each of these sort of minion robots, which is pretty interesting.
Supervising.
Super, yeah supervisor.
Basically, this is, that's your foremen.
Your foreman robot, obviously.
But yeah, this is a really cool technology and I, I really like this idea of I do think in about the next 10 to 20 years we're going to start seeing 3D printed houses instead of those like those pre-fab houses that really just need 3D printed houses.
And then we will have 3D printed robots that can then print more 3D printed robots.
And then it's over.
And then it's all over.
And then there will be no more episodes of Tomorrow Daily.
Well if we figure at some point robots will take over for us, you know.
I'll have to fight them when that day comes.
Mmhmm.
But until then we're gonna take a quick break.
We'll be right back.
We are going to talk about what we're into, and you've got a really good one, you're going old school.
You've got a pretty good one too.
You're going old school this week.
I am going old school.
And then we also have your user feedback.
And of course our phonetographer for today, so don't click away.
Tomorrow Daily.
[MUSIC]
All right everybody we are back.
It is time of course.
Every week we talk about what we, what we love.
The things we like.
No endorsements, no sponsorships, just stuff that we are into.
It's called, obviously Into It.
[NOISE]
You've got some, you've got a really good one this week.
I was actually very surprised to hear what you were into this week.
This week I am into the Secret of Mana, which is one of the greatest video games of all time, but yet a game that I had never actually played before.
And for whatever reason, I just decided that I wanted to play it, and I looked around and it's on the Wii virtual console, but not on the Wii U, not on the 3ds and I was looking for a great co-op rpg for my wife and I to play, because we like to play couch co op games together, and this ultimately was one of the best, so rather than trying to get my old Wii out, and make that work.
I got the original version from the super Nintendo got out my super Nintendo bought some controller extensions form I think off Amazon 4$ shipped and now my wife and I are playing through The Secret of the Nana.
Amazingly 20 years old this game and the battery and cartridge still work.
I was gonna say how's the battery and the cartridge can still save your game.
Yeah the CR2032 in there is still holding out.
Wow.
I have an SNES cartridge of Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Start.
Still the battery works.
Which is pretty incredible all things considering.
Yeah it's not easy to replace those.
You gotta pull it apart and then break the solder connection and set up and solder a new one and.
I, I would not know at all how to replace a battery on a cartridge.
So for those of you out there watching the show who have not experienced the cartridge area of gaming you were able to save your game with.
There's a tiny battery in these cartridges that enable you to save your game.
This is the, the entire...reason that we're able to save games.
Mm-hm.
Between like NES and like CD-ROM's, its because of these batteries and they die.
They take a long time.
Yeah.
Usually about ten years.
Yeah, I'm surprised [INAUDIBLE]
20 years, that's pretty impressive.
I do see them on e-bay, batteries still working, that's always a big plus
Yeah, and back in the day that also made the cartridges more expensive, so these games are upwards of 60 or $70 new, and this was back in like the early 90's, so you can imagine with inflation that's probably a $100 plus game.
Yeah, Super Mario RPG I think was like $80 when it first came out, it was 80 bucks.
So, anyway, I've got a, a complete inbox copy.
[INAUDIBLE]
That's playing it directly on a Super Nintendo.
That's pretty great.
And it doesn't look very good on my HD t.v.,
but c'est la vie.
You've got to take, yeah, you've got to take what you can get.
Mm-hm.
And you, what are you into this week?
I actually, I, I hate using remotes like three remotes, we have an Apple t.v., we have our television, we have a cable box.
I hate it.
I mean with just Roku, it's so many remotes.
And I ended up, on the recommendation from Mike, our friend Mike on the show, Mike Hobbs, he had bought one.
I bought a Logitech Harmony, smart remote, which really, the, the ad for this like they're trailer or whatever focuses on the app part of things, but really I bought it for the remote itself.
So here is, there's like a little hub.
It's your IR blaster for all of your stuff.
You set that up.
It's pretty, it's pretty easy to set everything up.
Very very simple.
But for me the real charm of this particular system is this remote.
It's about, the whole system is retailing I think it's like $129 but you can pretty easily find it at Best Buy for $99.
Mm-hm.
That's what I did.
I found it for $100 at Best Buy.
And here's, here's the remote.
It looks kind of big and it's, but it's actually really slim and it's, it's small and lightweight and very discreet.
And you can also program all just like every other Logitech Harmony right you can program activities in there.
So actually on ours we don't really have like a music like sound system, but it will control Sonos.
It'll control your Apple TV, which is really nice.
Mm-hm.
And a lot of remotes are not really super-compatible with Apple TV, so it's nice to see a remote that is.
And, and it's just so easy to use.
And, and finally, I'm able to just kind of get rid of all of the things.
The one thing I don't like about it is that you have to program.
For example, I don't want to shut off, it has an auto shut off feature, where if you switch inputs it will shut off what you are using, but sometimes I don't want to record, I want to make sure that my DVR is on so I can record a show, and this will sort of shut it off, so I had to disable that, and the other thing is.
I like to just shut off my TV and not my other peripherals, and so, for me, I had to set up a button for every activity, so whether I'm playing games
Um-hm
watching TV, or watching Apple TV, I have to set up a specific button on each of those activities, where it just shuts off the TV.
Now, what's the setup process like, because I have one of the Harmony, I think it's the 820, an older model and the setup process is this.
Terrible web wizard thing that takes an hour and a half to
Pretty ghastly interface.
It's still bad?
It's not that bad they, you have the app, you, you load up the app on android or ios and then it takes, it walks you through the process of setting it up.
It's pretty easy.
You just have to have the model numbers of what you're setting up handy and then and that's pretty much it and you just set it up and it automatically does it.
So it's all through your phone and it takes back the remote.
All through your phone.
Don't have to go through a web service which is really nice.
You do have to sign up for, I think, it's my harmony.
It's in the app, so when you sign in it automatically loads and syncs to your remote setting.
And you automatically get spam.
Yeah, of course, of course.
You automatically, you get your information just gets sold, gets sold to a million other third parties, but it's really, really, really good and I, I'm really enjoying it and I'm so happy that like we were able to put all three of our other remotes away.
Just have that one which is really nice.
And then I can just lose that one remote.
Yeah then I can just lose that.
Fit right between the couch cushions.
I'll never see it again.
Gone.
Great.
We have to talk about your user feedbacks.
Let's do that.
[MUSIC]
So you weren't here yesterday, but.
No I wasn't.
I don't think you were.
I hope not.
Er, it's super awkward if you were just hiding right behind there.
We talked about the, Note Edge.
Mm.
And we asked our lovely viewers out there what they would wanna do with that extra little sliver of real estate on their phone.
Mm-hm.
And Rob wrote to us.
He sent us an email.
And he said #TDS I'd find a way to make the little curved edge holographic.
Whoa!
So just picture this.
You're bored at a meeting or family function.
You put on your headphones like you're gonna listen to music, play a game, or watch a movie.
Waving your hand over the curved part of the screen will automatically transport you to that concert venue, gaming situation or inside the movie.
Rob, dude, I like his thinking.
Yeah, I know they're so open like everybody comes up with great ideas.
Our viewers are really, really smart.
Also Rob is actually the guy I mentioned on yesterday's show.
Who sent a huge list of TV shows that he would like revived, and I would just now like to read those because I felt really bad that I couldn't remember who it was.
So Rob, I got your back.
And he wanted to bring back Tales From the Crypt, good one, Freddie's Nightmares, Are You Afraid of the Dark.
And then we start getting into the awesome Nickelodeon shows.
All that, Ren and Stimpy, Clarissa explains it all, Real monsters, I love that show, Angry Beavers, Darkwing Duck,, Animaniacs, Tiny toon adventures, Gargoyles and the Batman animated series.
Now, do you think they could bring back Ren and Stimply, or do we just have to deal with adventure time these days.
I was gonna say, I think Ren and Stimpy might actually be too much for the audiences now, like, I feel like there's.
A lot, a little more kind of censorship.
Mm-hm.
It's sort of the same as the PG-13 rating not really meaning what it used to.
Yeah.
But yeah, I, I, I thought it was a really good list.
It is.
And I love like Tiny Tim Adventures and all that stuff.
So I
Darkwing Duck&gt;&gt; I would, yeah, I would really like to see some of those.
And especially those animated series come back.
I don't know that I wanna see Melissa Joan Hart, like who's 40 now, The New Clarissa Explains It All [LAUGH] I think that would be kind of weird.
Like she moves back home and Sam lives next door and he's all like you know, he's unemployed maybe and he's, you know.
And she's got a kid who dropped out of college and.
Yeah, like it seems really weird.
Like or maybe she has to move home, like she gets a divorce.
It's like really dark, like she has divorce, moves home with her kid.
Clarissa has a mid life crisis.
Yeah Clarissa explains all of her mid life crises.
Like that seems like what that would be so I don't know about that one but all of the, all of the great, all of those great animated shows I'm into.
Super into it.
So thank you Rob, thank you very much.
Thank you Rob.
Would you like to see some amazing phonetography?
I would love to see some phonetography.
I love phonetography.
So our phonetographer for the day is Senthil K.
Okay.
interesting name.
MM-hm.
He writes to us and says, here are his amazing pictures.
Wow.
He says hi guys, attached are pictures from Yosemite National Park.
Taken with iPhone 5S Panorama.
Now did he clear those with Apple's trademark department?
I know, I was gonna say.
i don't know [INAUDIBLE]
I'm seeing some half done there.
It's a really nice picture.
Yosemite's one of my favorite places.
I've never been.
To Yosemite?
I know, I just haven't gone out there yet.
I have to go before the volcano comes and kills us all.
The super volcano explodes.
It's going to kill pretty much everybody, so now's the time.
Now's the time.
The roads are melting.
[INAUDIBLE] That's a beautiful picture, beautiful place.
Really amazing, gorgeous.
Visit if you can.
Well done [UNKNOWN].
Uh-hm.
High five.
If you would like to send over your phonetography you can do so.
You can email us tomorrow@cnet.com.
Producer Logan is gonna hate me for this because we have a. We have a complete setup for the all the graphics on the show, but we're gonna talk about the hashtag of the day, cuz I forgot.
And our hashtag of the day today is #TDGameclass, and see how good he is.
Wow.
Amazing.
Impressive [INAUDIBLE]
What company would you want to sponsor a class?
Mm.
And what would the class be about?
So for example, you could have Ubisoft.
To teach a class
Mm-hm.
about the history of assassins.
Or as I mentioned before, bizarre, teaching a class about racing games.
Totally love that.
Or Psygnosis teaching a class about WipeOut, except they don't, neither of those companies exist anymore.
No, they don't.
So that would be kinda hard.
Double Fine teaching about adventure games.
There you go.
That's a class.
There you go.
That's a class you wanna take.
But yeah, so tell us what you, how you feel about that.
If you do not like Twitter you can always email us, like I said, you can send it tomorrow@cnet.
com.
And also, you can find us all over social media, we're tomorrowdaily on Twitter, we're tomorrowdaily on Facebook.
What are you guys on Pinterest again.
We are not on Pinterest, unfortunately, but we are on Instagram.
I gotcha.
Even though we only have a couple of pictures up.
Of what?
Maybe I'll put one up today.
Of that.
You've got pictures of all this wonderful surrounding.
You can see the behind the scenes.
That's true, the BTS.
Gotta give people the BTS.
Show people the wall that is behind the scenes.
That is right there.
That is a wall.
We're also on Google+, tomorrowdailytv.
Where can we find you on the internet?
You can find me on Google+, I think I'm, I can't remember the code.
Ginger bear Goliath.
Nine digit index.
Anyway, I'm on there, the search for Tim Stevens, at tim_stevens on the Twitters, because I like special characters.
Delightful.
And I'm probably somewhere else too.
You are in fact a special character.
Aw, you're a special character too.
And so is Logan.
He's also a special.
So is Logan.
And you guys all out there are also special characters.
But that's it for Tomorrow Daily for this week.
We will be back on Monday.
And then of course, we have, it's Apple Day, it's Rex Manning Day, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah.
Applestravaganza!
Applestravaganza on
I'll be there.
on Tuesday.
Tim will be.
On site.
Live blogging.
Live blogging it.
I will be at Sienna HQ with Brian Tom doing a live stream with Donald Dell.
I stay a few steps away in case things go horribly wrong.
There could be riots.
Like there's supposed to be a lot of people at this thing.
No one knows what's in that big white cube in Cupertino.
It could be blades.
Could be explosives.
Could just be, could be a fun house filled with knives.
Whoever makes it out gets an iPhone 6.
Or maybe it is Bono.
Oh, could be Bono.
I like it, could be anything really, and Bono then cuts you up, you have to run from Bono's music.
That is the most likely scenario.
Probably, that is what I am going to guess.
But that's it for this week, you guys have a great weekend, be good humans, as always, and we will see you on Monday, bye.
Bye.
[MUSIC]